


no returns or exchanges

by kristin



Category: The Wire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:28:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristin/pseuds/kristin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He didn’t know many people who did things, was the thing. They was either in the game or they tried to stop people from playing it. And of course there were those who were played. The ones who scrambled and schemed for any drop of happiness they could smoke or inject. But Dukie wasn’t going to be like them. He was gonna do something. And he could do this, he could.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Five things Dukie stole, and one thing he gave</p>
            </blockquote>





	no returns or exchanges

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brandytook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandytook/gifts).



**1\. pen**

Dukie didn’t mean to snatch it, really. Didn’t think it was anything special, at the time, and even later, when he looked back, it was more that it was the first, not that it was important.

But he wanted to write down the web address, so maybe next time he stayed late he could come again, read more about how they built web sites just from letters on the screen. Dukie had kinda thought they was just there, but no, you could make one for yourself.

Maybe Dukie could do that.

He didn’t know many people who did things, was the thing. They was either in the game or they tried to stop people from playing it. And of course there were those who were played. The ones who scrambled and schemed for any drop of happiness they could smoke or inject. But Dukie wasn’t going to be like them. He was gonna do something. And he could do this, he could.

But he thought he might need to know more. And so he had to remind himself, so he swiped the pen and etched the letters carefully onto his arm, a barely legible smudge against his skin. But that way he wasn’t gonna lose it. So he grabbed the pen off Prezbo’s desk, and when he was done he tucked it into his bag. 

Just a pen. Didn’t mean nothing.

 

 **2\. shirt**  
He was supposed to bring them back and then Prezbo would wash them. That was the deal. And most of the time that was how it went.

But sometimes he slipped, didn’t bring back everything. And sometimes it was just forgetfulness. The first time, though, that was intentional. 

When he opened up his bag, he saw it, the bright blue almost too intense among the shadows. The shirt was covered in ink, the blue so thick that when he touched the fabric of the shirt his fingers were coated with dye too. 

And Dukie, he knew what happened when you fucked up. 

People wanted to help him. He didn’t know why people could look at him, see that he wasn’t hard enough to handle things alone. What made them slip him sandwiches and even the odd dollar. But they did, and Dukie knew, knew with the full weight of experience, that when you fucked up, people didn’t seem to care too much about helping anymore. And that wasn’t going to fucking happen here, no.

Prezbo, he was good. It was as simple as that. He helped Dukie, and Dukie, he needed Prezbo’s kind of help. 

So, ok, no. It wasn’t simple. It was computer time and clean clothes. It was the thought that maybe Dukie wasn’t doomed to fail out. And so Dukie sat there, until the ink dried, flaking off his fingers and falling to the ground, until he knew what he had to do.

When Prezbo asked about it, Dukie lied.

 

**3\. comic**

Dukie just wanted it. He didn’t have any excuse for it. It was shiny and glossy and when Prezbo pulled it out and put a finger over his lips like it was some big secret and Dukie, he just wanted that too.

Dukie was busy, though. He had a computer in front of him, so everything else faded out in the face of that. That meant he just caught glimpses. When the pages were turned he could see flashes of bright colors, reds bright and glossy, pulling his eyes away from the computer screen.

He kept it tucked up in his backpack, plastic wrapper crinkling under his binder every time he moved anything around.

The fucking thing about it was, Dukie hated it. 

It was too short; even paging through it slowly, fingers careful on the edges, like Prezbo had held it, it only took minutes to read. And while Dukie knew who Spiderman was, they didn’t bother explaining who the fuck Kraven was and why he was hunting Spiderman.

But he kept it. Kept it a long time, waiting to figure out why this had made Prezbo smile like that. Kept it until he started chasing bliss and left everything else behind. 

 

**4\. hope**

Dukie thought about going back to Edward Tilghman sometimes. Maybe too much. Mike, he didn’t. 

“Why the fuck would I go there?” He spat the words out, like he was mad at the words themselves, couldn’t wait to get them out of his mouth, out of his mind, even.

“I was just thinking, that’s all,” said Dukie, hands in front of him on the table, fingers tapping, like if he made the movements enough the keyboard would appear under them. “I thought I saw Prezbo the other day, that’s all. He was driving by.”

“He see you?” And fuck Mike, because yeah, Dukie thought maybe he did. And maybe he saw what Dukie was doing. 

 

 **5\. wallet**  
It was a stupid idea maybe. But Dukie, well, he wasn’t so tiny anymore. People didn’t help him, didn’t slip him anything. And fuck it, but he needed something. Needed ten dollars to slip down his veins.

Dukie shivered, the wind cutting through to his bones. Maybe he could go to the shelter, call Bubs even. Let him know that Dukie is slipping, sliding. That he has a stupid plan to get his fix. Dukie knows he could fight through it. But fuck it, he needs this. And they have a plan.

Janey, she was the one who came up with it, not that it took much thinking. She finds a dude and distracts him, then Dukie will separate them and take the man’s wallet. Then Janey and he take the money and go and get happy.

Dukie had met Janey at a meeting. He tried to listen while she explained about her fall into his world, but he was only half listening, drinking down cold coffee and thinking more about her tits than her story. 

When he set aside the meetings and ducked Bubs’ too-seeing eyes, she was right there with him. She held his hand while that first hit soaked into him, smiling big and wide. She went back to the meetings with him, too, when he decided maybe he wanted out of that life. She held his hand there too, and didn’t let it go when they left again.

And it was Janey, so he didn’t stop when he saw who she was working. No, fuck that. He didn’t notice, didn’t care. Because his hands were shaking when he grabbed the wallet and not because of nerves or the wind.

No he noticed when tearing through the wallet, digging into the seam to work out a quarter. “Teachers don’t fucking carry any cash,” he said, mostly to himself, but apparently loud enough that Janey heard him. He swiped his finger across the picture in the driver’s license, then traced the letter of the name. Roland. It doesn’t seem to fit Prezbo.

“How do you know he was a teacher?” she asks. Her voice is steadier than his right now. He thinks she got a hit earlier. She had gone off with Icey earlier, probably fucked him in return for a bit of bliss. Smart. One of them needed to be in their right state for this.

So he told her. Told her about the computer, and the shirts and even the comic book he had toted around. Told her about how Prezbo had been so nice and tried so hard.

It didn’t stop him from selling the I.D. to the shady nigger at the computer store, though.

 

**+1. coffee**

Dukie didn't think anything of it when Bubs called, even though Bubs doesn’t call him all that often, not these days. It has been two years since Janey passed and Dukie locked himself into a bathroom for days, sweating and pissing out everything out of his system in a fucked up offering to her. Like he could stay clean for both of them since she went into the ground full of poison.

It didn’t work, that time. You can’t do it for other people, even if they are your life. It was Bubs that told him that. And so when Dukie tried again, thinking about making something, thinking about working and living and realized he did want more than just the drugs, then it stuck.

And after that, he had leaned on Bubs hard, talked to him everyday. But these days Bubs didn’t have to call so often; instead would mostly wander down to Johnny’s and stop in while Dukie was working. So when he saw Bub’s big gap-tooth grin flash on his phone he just picked it up with a distracted, “What?”

“I saw a familiar face today,” said Bubs, without so much as a ‘hello’.

“Everyone is familiar to you, Bubs,” said Dukie, still concentrating more on the computer on the desk in front of him, wires spilling out of the chassis. 

He could hear the smile in Bubs’ voice. “It’s true, I got the wise eyes.”

“Then why you so fucked up?” asked Dukie, joking with familiar ease.

Bubs laughed, “Wise eyes don’t help if you don’t have no mirrors about.” He paused, but not for long. Bubs’ spilled out words like Johnny could untangle wire, effortlessly. “No, there was a white man at the store looking at graduation cards. He was a teacher.”

And fuck Bubs, because he did see too much sometimes, knew Dukie’s history too well. And fuck it all, because the bell was jingling and Dukie could see Prezbo walking in, looking around. 

There wasn’t much to see, just two cramped tables piled high with spare parts and dead computer corpses. It wasn’t much to see, but Dukie loved it, fiercely. Even when he hated waking up and going to work, when the paycheck was lean he loved that he had his bench and he did work. 

“Can I help you?” asked Dukie, voice calm and words rote.

“I'm not sure." Prezbo looked good, face still thin, though now it was covered up by a beard.

Dukie shrugged, looking down at his hand. “I guess you never thought you would see me again. At least like this.” _Alive_ he meant. _Working_. 

“I gave up being shocked at anything the first time a 9 year old offered to suck my dick to get out of trouble in school.” Prezbo winced even as the words came out of his mouth, like he knew he had said too much.

Dukie was working up to saying something about how he was sorry, about how Prezbo kept trying and that was more than most people. But what he said was, “Why do you like Spiderman so much, anyway?”

And maybe it didn’t make any sense to say it, maybe it was a stupid question, but Prezbo, he just laughed. He shook his head a little bit, like he had been seeing double, Dukie then and Dukie now. “I knew that was you.”

“I don’t have it anymore,” Dukie looked down at his hands, still instinctively working on re-attaching the DVD drive. “Sorry.”

Prezbo waved it off. “Did you at least like it?” 

“No, it fucking sucked,” said Dukie, truthful. He paused, raised his eyes up to Prezbo’s face. “But I kept it a long time, because I wanted to know why you liked it. I could buy you some coffee, you could tell me about it.”

Dukie nodded at Johnny as he headed to the door, "Back in a bit." Johnny looked suspicious. He was right to be. 

The first time he had met him, Dukie and Janey had been in here trying to scam some computer parts off him, see if they could sell them for cash. Johnny had had none of that, but he had seen Dukie had a knack for them.

After, when Janey was gone, and Dukie was close to clean, Johnny had hired him under the table, but he was still wary from that first meeting. So Dukie smiled and said, "Want me to bring you back a coffee?"

Johnny shook his head and so Dukie didn’t look back as he opened the door. He had reach on Prezbo now, clear when he ducked under his arm to get out. They stay silent. Dukie nods down the street towards one of the ubiquitous chain coffee places. 

Dukie wants to ask why Prezbo why he is here. Why he would care if Bubbles knew where he was. He wants to ask, but he doesn’t know if he wants the answers. Doesn’t want to know if this is part of some fucked up revenge. Not when all he really wants is to make amends. (When he had been on that step, there hadn’t been anyone left who he thought would listen to him.)

But still, he stays quiet until they get to the front of the line and give their orders. Then all he says is, “I got this.”


End file.
